Aunt Megan's Graduation

Janalynn and I flew to Utah (well, actually Las Vegas, then drove to Utah) at the end of April to go to Aunt Megan's graduation from Southern Utah University. (Nana was in Texas to help hold down the fort.)

Megan received her bachelor's degree in Business and Marketing. It was really cold there and we had to bundle up. It even snowed on us. That didn't stop Aunt Megan (on left in photo below) from wearing her new open-toed orange shoes. On our walk to the University-wide ceremony, we saw Megan and some of her friends lining up, so we stopped to take a picture.

Grandpa carried Janalynn in the Baby Bjorn on our walk across campus.

Megan took the opportunity to pose in front of the backdrop that SUU had set up for photo ops.

With the parents who made it all possible.

On our walk back to Megan's house, she did a pose in front of the bell tower.

Me with Megan in her living room (in my only warm clothes that fit--not used to dressing up in the cold!).

Janalynn loved snuggling with her Uncle Justin.

Janalynn met her new cousin Timothy who was only 2 months old, but is almost as big as her!

Janalynn also got to visit with her two Great-Grandmas (my Grandmas) at the graduation party.

On Sunday after church, we posed by this photo display in my parents' house that shows both me and Megan at one-year-old wearing the same dress that Janalynn is wearing. Funny how Janalynn looks a lot more like one-year-old Megan than one-year-old me.

We had a good trip, even though it was cold and Janalynn was so tired on the plane ride home. The only way I could finally get her to sleep was putting a Baby Einstein movie on the DVD player for her to look at so she would settle down and lay on my shoulder and fall asleep. Congratulations, Megan, on your graduation!

Nana's Visit

Nana came to visit for Janalynn's birthday back in April and to stay with the boys and Dad while Janalynn and I went on a trip to Utah. We didn't really get any pictures of what she did, but she was helpful. She went as a chaperone on J.D.'s field trip and played with the kids and took them to the park. While she was here, we tried to get a few pictures of the kids on the trampoline, but the sun was in their eyes and Jake did not want to cooperate.

If you really look, you can see her behind Janalynn in this picture.

Thanks for coming to visit Nana!

Janalynn Turns One!

We celebrated Janalynn's First Birthday the day before her actual birthday with a party with neighbors and friends. We had an evening barbeque with a cupcake theme. The only bad part was that because it was Sunday, the birthday girl took a short nap at the end of afternoon church and then wouldn't take another nap when we got home, so she was pretty tired for the party.

Our good friend, Jeannie, made her birthday cake. It was a giant cupcake to match the cupcake on Janalynn's shirt.

For dinner we had hamburgers, grilled chicken, hot dogs, and sides, with cupcakes, of course, for dessert.

Here's Janalynn with her birthday buddy. She was born on our next door neighbor's birthday, so it was nice to have him celebrate with us.

When it was time for cake, we lit the candle and gave the cake to Janalynn with the idea that we would sing, she would blow out the candle (with help), and we would let her dig into the cake and make a big mess. Here she is looking excited.

Well, after we sang to her and one of her brothers blew out the candle, she just looked at the cake and didn't know what to do. We tried to give her a taste of it and put her fingers in it so she was know what to do, but she just started to cry. I think it was mostly because she was so tired.

Later, we tried just giving her one of the smaller cupcakes to eat, but she didn't want anything to do with that either. So, we finally just gave up on having her eat cake on her birthday. (Incidentally, we've been to a couple of birthday parties since then and she has chowed the pieces of cake I have given her.)

After the cake fiasco, we let her open her presents. She was really excited. She got some cute dresses, a little see n' say and a play cell phone. Jim and I gave her a little table and two chairs and a tea set.

The boys gave her "Jessie" the cowgirl (for two reasons--1) they love all things Toy Story and (2) her middle name is Jessica and Jim wanted to call her Jessie.

I used the same idea that I did for Joey's party and gave water bottles with cupcake appliques as favors. However, since we had lots of adults, we just filled theirs with Crystal Light and chocolate instead of other candy and toys as we did for the kids.

Here she is right before bedtime, playing with Jessie and a balloon from her party. I think she had a fun time, even though she was tired.

The following Sunday, we were in Utah for Aunt Megan's college graduation (see separate post), so we had a little birthday celebration for her with my family. I experimented with putting cake in a couple of pyrex pans and made a medium-size cupcake for her.

We sang to her and someone blew out the candle. She had the same reaction to the cake we tried to give her in Utah that she did in Texas. She just cried.

Grandma and Grandpa gave her some really cute outfits that Grandma had sewn for her. She had fun ripping the wrapping.

Happy Birthday, Janalynn!!!

Easter 2010

We had a fun Easter this year, with lots of festivities. Since Easter Sunday was during our church's General Conference and we wouldn't actually be going to church, we didn't worry too much about Easter clothes, but I did take a picture of the kids the Sunday before Easter when the boys were wearing matching polo shirts and Janalynn was wearing her cute polo tennis dress. We snapped a few, but this is the best one we got.


Also, the week before Easter, the kids had fun opening their Easter package from Nana.

Janalynn was really excited!

On Good Friday night, a group of girl friends and I went to our stake's sing-along Messiah and an art exhibit of The Reflections of Christ. We went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner afterward. We had a great time and it was a fun (and spiritual) way to start Easter weekend.

On the Saturday morning of Easter weekend, the kids all got up and came to our room for some reason without going downstairs. This rarely happens so I had to document it. (Of course Janalynn did not come in our room on her own, she had help.) Daddy looks like he is still asleep.

The kids all went downstairs to see that the Easter bunny had paid a visit and left them each a bucket with candy and a few toys and movies.

Janalynn got the yogurt snacks she likes and The Princess and the Frog movie that came with a little purse.

J.D. and Jake got Nerf guns and accessories and Joey got Thomas stuff.

We watched conference in the morning, then after the first session our neighbors and a few friends came over for lunch and an Easter egg hunt. Janalynn was excited for her first egg hunt. She used her new Care Bears sand bucket to collect eggs.

Here are all the egg hunters getting ready to hunt. (We had sixteen kids ages 1 to 13 for our hunt.)

Joey (in the red shirt bending over) was off quickly and started grabbing eggs.

Janalynn was more interested in eating the plastic eggs than looking for them.

Jake helped Janalynn collect a few eggs.

After all of the eggs were found, we brought out the 10 dozen or so confetti eggs and everyone had a great time smashing them on each other's heads. (I was vacuuming up confetti in the house for weeks after.) Oh well, it was fun!

We tried to get a family picture, but the sun was in everyone's eyes and they were grouchy.

Here are all of the ladies that were there with their kids (+ Janalynn). For some reason I didn't get a picture of the food, but it was yummy!

Thanks, friends, for joining us for a fun Easter Saturday!

On Easter Sunday, we just relaxed at home and watched conference. We tried to make it a more spiritual day to focus on the true meaning of Easter.

Blog Catch-Up - We're Finally Back!

Yes, it really has been over 2 months since I posted anything of substance on the blog. Now that school is out and before we leave on our summer vacation, I am going to try to catch up. There is a lot so it will probably take a few days. Keep checking back and if you don't have Google Reader, scroll down so you don't miss anything!

Janalynn's Photo Shoot

Right before Janalynn's first birthday, my talented friend, Ralphie, did a photo shoot with Janalynn in the beautiful Texas wildflowers (including the Texas state flower--blue bonnets). You can see a preview of the photo shoot here. The blue dress she is wearing is one that my mom made for me to wear when I was one.

The Great Buzzigi

If you can all remember back to Halloween, when we could not get Joey to wear his costume at all--suddenly, now, he loves to wear costumes and even makes up his own combination of things from the costume bin. Here he is wearing the Luigi costume and the Buzz Lightyear wings, so we called him the Great Buzzigi.


We are currently working on potty training with him--my very least favorite parenting task!!! After one week, he pretty much always does his pee-pee in the potty (or at least in a pull-up during nap). He is even staying dry at night and he woke up the middle of the night last night to go potty. (Which is better than his older brothers often do.) However, he has yet to poop in the potty once. We even have a Thomas toy that he really wants sitting up high in the kitchen and we talk about it all the time and tell him as soon as he poops in the potty he can get it down. Still won't. Oh well, I know it will happen sometime--just hope it is soon!!!

Eleven Months Old and Walking!

Janalynn turned eleven months old a couple of weeks ago and she is walking! She has been standing herself up in the middle of the floor for the past month or so, but she didn't really start taking many steps until a couple of weeks ago. I finally got a picture of her standing up in the middle of the floor.


A couple of days after she turned eleven months old, she was starting to take some steps, so I got my little Flip video out to film her and she stopped (of course). Then I set it down and she picked it up and started walking all around. Since she was holding the video camera, I couldn't film her walking. It was very frustrating! I did get a couple of cute pictures of her that day before church in the cute tennis dress that Ashley sent her.

A couple of days later, I finally got a video of her walking. (Her back is turned because if she saw me she would start crawling and try to grab the camera.)

As of today, she is really walking a lot and she is climbing the stairs and climbing up on the futon in the playroom. Here is the evidence.

She is really excited to be keeping up with her brothers and I'm sure she will keep learning more skills so she can. We can't believe she will be one in a couple of weeks! (By the way, her hair is all crazy in these videos because it is right before bedtime and I just took out her little Cindy Lou Who pigtail on the top of her head.)

Most Improved Player

Jake is playing soccer again this season. Last season it was almost like pulling teeth to get him to try hard at practices or the games. However, this season, something clicked and he is definitely the most improved player. Here are a few good moves from his last game. (I couldn't get Blogger to upload one of the videos--that is why there are two formats.)

Spring Break Fun

Grandma was here for a short visit at the very beginning of Spring Break. She was on her way home from Florida and figured she might as well stop in Texas on her way back. The first night and day she was here were mostly spent getting ready for and having Joey's birthday party, and then recovering, but then we did a few fun things. Saturday night, Grandma and I went shopping for some fabric (sans kids, so that was enjoyable). Sunday afternoon after church and dinner, we went on a family bike ride/walk in the nice weather. Monday morning we ran a few errands, then had some Mighty Fine for lunch and the kids were able to play at the playground. Then we made a quick trip to IKEA before rushing home to get Joey a nap and Grandma a little bit of sewing time before we had to take her to the airport. For some reason, I didn't get any pictures of this, but it was still fun.

Wednesday evening, Jim took Jake and J.D. to the Carnival in the parking lot of the baseball stadium near our house. We have seen this carnival come to town a couple times a year ever since we have lived here and the boys always beg to go and we never take them. When we saw it with Grandma, she looked up the times to see if she could take them while she was here. Unfortunately, it didn't open until her flight was leaving, so she couldn't take them, but we promised them that Jim would take them. They had tons of fun riding the rides and eating carnival food. (We made the decision that Janalynn and Joey would not enjoy it and neither would the rest of us if we took them.) Since I wasn't there, I had to ask J.D. what was going on in these pictures, so the commentary is from him (and some from what Jim told me).

Here are the boys riding a helicopter ride.


There were a few big slides that the boys enjoyed going down.


This maze was made out of clear plexiglass and Jake got lost a few times and the carnival worker had to help him get out.


The boys loved riding in these little cars. Jake picked this one because yellow is his favorite color.

Here is one of the many little roller coasters they rode.


They spent a fun four hours having great dad-son time and came home tired. Jake fell asleep on the couch when they had only been home for about 10 minutes.

The next day our nanny, Marlina, braved the bad traffic downtown and took the boys to the Children's Museum. Again, since I wasn't there, J.D. had to tell me what the pictures mean. Here he was building with things on a pegboard.


Joey was having fun playing with gears and turning them.


Give my boys trucks and sand and they will be entertained for hours.


Here the boys were sorting construction pieces and wearing hardhats. (J.D. actually gave me a much more detailed explanation, but I'm too tired to type it all.)


Joey enjoyed building with blocks.


Finally, the thing the boys enjoyed the most was playing with the train table--something they could easily just do at home. Oh well!


Friday afternoon, we played outside with our neighbors for a while. These three boys had a great time on the trampoline.

Joey and Grace were loving the sand and rocks.

I ended Spring Break with a fun girls' night on Friday and Jim had a guys' night the next night. We worked on some projects inside on Saturday since it poured rain and was really cold. We were glad to have a whole week to adjust to Daylight Savings Time, and still weren't really ready for school to start again, but we made it!